Escape
by Weaver
Summary: The fortress of Azkaban lies on a desolate isle, surrounded by mist - nobody has ever escaped. Maybe, though, nobody's ever had enough motivation? And Cornelius Fudge is inspecting today...


The Dark Star  
- by the Weaver  
  
A windswept and dismal isle lies far out on a cold, grey sea. The shores are rocky and barren - nothing grows here. High on a bleak cliff stands a forbidding fortress, malevolent and menacing.  
  
The inside of the fortress is dank and dull. Greenish slime festoons the walls and cobwebs hang from every corner. Stone floors, stone walls, stone ceilings - nothing breaks the dark gloom except for the iron bars, spaced every few feet along every hallway. They are doors, made entirely of thick, pitted iron.   
  
Screams echo down the corridors, haunting, agonised screams. Human screams. The soft sound of weeping pervades the atmosphere, never seeming to cease. Occasionally, hysterical or insane laughter bursts forth from a cell. In one distant place, a man is screeching curses at the ceiling. Hell itself could not sound worse.  
  
But one cell is different. One cell is silent - not the terrible silence that indicates death - a common occurence here - but a tortured silence, a silence that screams.  
  
Outside this cell, a towering figure stands, wreathed in shadows and hidden in a midnight-black robe. It doesn't move. It doesn't need to move to be both terrifying and menacing.  
  
Behind the black figure, behind the thick bars, the cell is dark. Everywhere in the prison is dark, but here the darkness is thicker, denser, blacker. A gleam of white in the dark indicates the presence of a man.   
  
Black eyes glimmer from beneath a tangled mane of equally black hair. Deathly white skin, half concealed by filth and ragged grey robes, contrasts sharply with the midnight eyes. Gaunt, thin arms grip each other around gaunt and thin legs, and the sharp-boned face is twisted into an expression of terrible suffering and a relentless anger.  
  
This man is suffering more than any other - for he knows he is innocent of the charges laid against him, despite his unceasing guilt. He was given no trial - circumstantial evidence was enough to send him here. And once here, the guards make no difference between innocent and guilty - they drank his happiness as they drank any other's.  
  
And he knows he is guilty. Guilty of recklessness, of overconfidence, of desperation... desperate enough to miscalculate and allow his two closest friends to be murdered. Reckless enough to not realise who the traitor really was. Overconfident enough to be sure of his decision... he has paid for that here, many times over. This is his twelfth year here; and he can see no hope for the future. The real traitor runs free while he moulders here.  
  
Despair batters at his mental defences, but he refuses to give in. He would like to give in - he would like to become insensible and insane like everyone else - but it is not in his nature. He cannot give in. Hopeless thoughts of revenge chase each other, dreams of boiling oil and pin-sharp knives ... he can take no pleasure in these, only a dull sort of wrench as yet another feeling is drawn out of him.  
  
Once this man was happy. Once, he was full of laughter, handsome and strong; he watched the world with a smile on his face, spending his days at hard work and his evenings with his closest friends. Always, full of laughter.  
  
Once.  
  
Now the laughter has been stripped from him, stripped and smashed on the cold, hard stone of the floor, leaving his heart as barren as the isle the prison sits on. He cannot remember being happy. He cannot recall the good times. He spends the time drowning in memories ... two of his best friends, dead and cold in the rocky ground ... his other best friend, alone in a hostile world, with no-one to care for him when he went through rough times ... and the traitor, who he once called a friend.  
  
He drops his head onto his knees wearily. He has spent twelve years hunched in this corner, the north corner - the corner closest to all those he once knew and loved. He cannot remember why he sits there, now - there is some small sense of comfort that remains with him, but the guards have taken those memories along with the others. They are thorough.  
  
Suddenly a stir runs through the dank stone prison. The towering, shadowy guards move away from their posts, congregating in the centre of the hall, near a large stone door. The prisoners don't stop their wailing... most of them don't even notice. One of them does.  
  
The lanky man leaps to his feet, shaking the mass of black tangles out of his glinting eyes in a movement as habitual as breathing. His gaunt face, though still twisted in despair, now shows a slight interest.  
  
His eyes don't change. They keep that dead look that twelve years of misery have given him.  
  
The door swings slowly open and three men enter. They are white and shaking, their faces full of false courage. One of them, a portly man in a pinstripe suit, carries a folded newspaper under his arm.  
  
The shadowy guards speak to them, and the men answer. Then the guards escort them around the corner.  
  
The man in the cell watches them disappear before taking up a casual lounging position on the stone bed. "Don't let them see you weak," he mutters to himself. His voice sounds croaky, disused, as though he has not spoken for long years.  
  
He stays in that position until the men come back, walking slowly past the cells. They pause in front of his. He stares at them levelly, and each man shuffles back slightly. The prisoner's lips curve into a smirk - not a smile. Just a cruel curve.   
  
"Now see here, man..." the portly inspector starts, but then trails off. What could he say, after all?   
  
"Are you finished with your newspaper?" the prisoner croaks. Perfectly politely.  
  
"My - my newspaper?" the portly man stammers, taken aback. "What - what do you want it for?"  
  
"I miss doing the crossword, you see."  
  
The man shrugs wordlessly and passes it through the bars. The men beside him whisper something to him and he nods.  
  
The three inspectors turn on their heels, almost running in their hurry to get away from the hellish prison. The prisoner snorts.  
  
When the men are out of the prison, he picks up the newspaper and takes it back to his corner. It is the first thing that has happened to break the monotony in twelve years. He studies each page eagerly, carefully - until he comes to something that makes him forget all about the crossword.  
  
It is a photograph, a black-and-white photograph of a family on holiday. And in the middle of the picture is someone he's thought of often...  
  
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Disclaimer - not mine, dammit, not mine. And I only reposted this 'cause I'm bored. 


End file.
